


Brand Spanking New Suit

by LadyPrince



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Anxiety, Bad Ending, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Creepy, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-08
Updated: 2019-03-08
Packaged: 2019-11-13 19:03:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18037076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyPrince/pseuds/LadyPrince
Summary: Standing before the endoskeleton, Rhys supposes he should have expected Jack to be obsessed.He didn’t. He’s awfully naive, and he supposes he’s paying the price now.





	Brand Spanking New Suit

**Author's Note:**

> Title inspired by Boom! Bap! Pow!'s song, Suit.  
> Originally written and posted on tumblr.
> 
>  **Original publish date:** 5th of April, 2016.
> 
> There is a sentence I like at the very end. Guess what it is.

Before Rhys, the weird ass… thing stands proudly. Jack is staring down at him, all wide grins and blue, shining teeth and Rhys’s brows furrow. There is this weird… look on Jack’s face. He can’t exactly tell, maybe it’s just the fact that Jack isn’t as _close or as near_ as he was before and is just… in computer screens, or whatever, but something about this whole thing is _unnerving_ him.

The air is thick with tension—mostly from Rhys, because Jack is far too elated to even make things tense. He laughs nervously and Jack just tilts his head to the side, still somehow looking down on him and Rhys’s shoulders sag at the notion.

 _‘Not now, Rhys, not now!’_ he berates himself when he realises what he’s thinking about and he steels himself, breathes in deeply to get rid of the nervousness at the sight of the weird ass thing in front of him, and finally manages to actually _use words._ “What is that, Jack?” He prides himself on being able to sound demanding, pats himself on the back, and he looks back up to the computer screen with Jack’s face on it.

“That, Rhysie boy, is the Endoskeleton that Nakayama created.” Jack says, voice oddly excited and breathy – even though he can’t _breathe,_ Jack can just… do that he supposes – and Rhys looks at him with a blank expression.

“But… didn’t you say that the—"

“Yep! I did, I did. I know, kiddo, I _lied._ I just had to be sure I could trust you with this, kiddo.” Jack soothes and Rhys can’t help it. He relaxes from the tone of his voice and, though he knows he shouldn’t, takes tiny steps closer to the Endoskeleton that Jack seems so proud of. He runs his fingers along the yellow plating and there is a bit of surprise on Rhys’s face over how… sturdy it feels.

Looking back up to Jack, the man is staring at him expectantly. What… exactly Jack is expecting? Rhys doesn’t know. He looks at Jack with pinched eyebrows and a slightly terrified glint in his eyes. Something about this entire situation is putting him on edge. He really doesn’t know why. “Trust me with this?” Rhys eventually manages out when Jack seems to be so distant, thinking of something else as he stares through Rhys.

“Why would you worry about that?” Rhys asks and he straightens his back, tries to make himself seem confident despite the unease that crawls around all of Jack’s office like a plague. “I did so much for you, why did you have to worry so much about showing me…” he looks down and vaguely gestures at the Endoskeleton, “a pet project of som—“ _someone else._ His eyes widen.

He looks up at Jack with questioning eyes when it hits him that… this is really out of place here. “Finally hit ya, did it, Rhys?” He doesn’t answer Jack, and the man just laughs – manic glee in his voice, no longer soothing – and the computer screen moves closer to Rhys. “This was supposed to help me _live forever._ Now, the only problem was that it would _kill_ me.”

 _Oh no._ Oh no. no no no no no no no no—

“Of course, we didn’t use it. But Nakayama insisted I keep it—probably ‘cause of some creepy reason, I have no freaking clue.” Jack rolls his eyes, disgust evident on his face, before he looks back at Rhys with a gaze _that is far too kind_. “But you—oh Rhysie, you have given me a wonderful new opportunity.”

He takes one step back, his entire body going numb and his brain seemingly shutting down from the anxiety that claws at his chest. Jack doesn’t seem to care about Rhys’s movements—oh no, his eyes are… far off. If Jack had a body, Rhys is sure that his eyes would be glistening with something toxic.

“You—you want to—you want to—“ Rhys can’t even finish the sentence as panic seems to settle in the very pits of his stomach. His body is frozen and _he really needs to run right now. He really, really needs to run._

Jack’s lips pull back, revealing perfect rows of fading blue teeth. His eyes are half-lidded as he stares down on Rhys, looking so much like the embodiment of silky poison. “You’re going to _be me,_ baby.” Ecstasy rolls off of Jack’s holographic tongue as he speaks and Rhys is—Rhys is— “It’s a great deal, isn’t it, sweetheart? You used to _idolise me._ Now you’re gonna **_be me._** ”

His head is spinning and his world is _spinning._ This is _not happening. This is not happening. This is **not** happening. _He opens his mouth, ready to yell and scream at Jack because this is _crazy_ and _Rhys really doesn’t want to die, he doesn’t want to die, he—_

But Jack moans then, a sound that echoes in the entire office, and his next choice of words just causes everything in Rhys to shut down.

“You’re gonna look _so good on me,_ baby boy.”

Everything else is a blur. There are whirs and so many tools that sprout up and he’s falling back down onto the chair. He’s cuffed to the chair and his eyes only focus on the Endoskeleton in front of him that is getting **too close.**

No words can get out of Rhys, however, and his lips are gaping. The drive pulls itself out again and hovers near Rhys’s port. “Night night, Rhysie.” Jack coos and the drive presses in, and everything in Rhys’s world goes black.

* * *

When those mismatched eyes open again, blood splattered all over the floor alongside organs and _wow_ his office is an awful mess, yet everything is bright and _wonderful_ again. The cuffs of his chair retreat, letting his wrists go, and Jack looks down at his hands.

Victorious and loud laughter echoes in his office as Jack curls his flesh and prosthetic hand into tight fists. He runs his hands down his body, feels and touches the man ( _inexperienced young man, growing up still, breathing all wrong_ ) that he has grown fond of.

 _‘This way,’_ he thinks, hands undressing himself so that he can sink fingers into his own flesh, _‘you’ll never leave or betray me.’_


End file.
